After votes counted, Perry grows more candid

By Scott Stroud :
November 10, 2010

It's an American tradition for politicians to say one thing on the campaign trail and something different after they win.

But Gov. Rick Perry might've set the all-time bait-and-switch land-speed record with his new book "Fed Up!" released the day after votes were counted.

Among other things, it's more generous toward Arizona's new immigration law than anything he said during the campaign.

Perry promoted the book Tuesday with a swing through San Antonio, just after an appearance on "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart." Appearing at Augie's Barbed Wire Smokehouse Bar-B-Que, the governor acknowledged that he'd grown more expansive after the voters had their say.

"The book, I would suggest to you, has some things we didn't talk about in the campaign, but that's good," he said. "I want to create a national dialogue. I want people to not be afraid to talk about that Social Security is bankrupt, and it is a Ponzi scheme, and if you've got a young 20-something-year-old, they know for a fact that they're not ever gonna see that."

What he's saying about Social Security will merit further discussion if Perry runs for president. But when the deception involves immigration, a subject on which legislators have been camping out to file bills for the 2011 legislative session, voters have good reason to feel "fed up" about being misled.

He writes: "Gov. Brewer and the Arizona legislature took a modest step to fill the breach caused by the failure of the federal government - and are completely within their rights to do so."

Perry does express one misgiving about the law, namely that it might be "opening up the courthouse doors to additional lawsuits." But his overall enthusiasm should surprise voters who heard him say the Arizona law wouldn't work in Texas - and not much more.

In the interview with Stewart, Perry held his own but ducked the two best questions. After he decried federal intrusion into every aspect of our lives, Stewart asked: "Should they be able to tell you how much lead can be in your paint, or how much salmonella can be in your lettuce?"

The question pierced Perry's claim that the Commerce Clause of the Constitution is subjected to unnecessary, unconstitutional abuse. It's actually a valid starting point for an argument but one that loses steam under scrutiny.

That's at least debatable, as anyone who attended a public hearing at the downtown library Monday on the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality could tell you. But Stewart followed up with another question.

"What if you didn't clean it up?" he asked. "Would you have the right to not clean up the air? Is your suggestion that the states should have the right to either clean up the air or not?"

Perry replied that the states are "by and large run by thoughtful people, men and women who aren't going to let their environment go to hell in a handbasket. And if you had a governor or a government in there that was doing that, the people would kick them out."

On the other hand, if your state placed no limit on campaign contributions and the polluters could spend as much as they wanted to keep you in office and you were a world-class campaigner, federal intervention might be the only sure way to keep the air reasonably clean.